Saturday, May 16, 2009

May 16, 2009: Rain, wiring, and plumbing

We didn't make it out on Friday, but did on Saturday with Bruno and April (current neighbors). Friday it rained in the afternoon and a lot in the evening, so not quite as much happened.

Electrical rough-ins in the garage.

Bruno and Preethi look at the Great Room. Wiring for the recessed lights is above. We're not quite certain if that's in the right place as we want the lights to be further up on the ceiling than where the wire is, but the large loops may indicate that the electrician is planning on it being higher than it is.

Rough ins in the great room with Cable / Phone lines running. The fireplace will be about (slightly to the right) of where you see those two higher boxes.

The wire for the great room fan is hanging down here.

The doorbell wire at the entrance.

A couple more pipes were added for hot and cold water to the washer in the laundry room (on the left).

Preethi, April, and Bruno look out the great room bumpout.

Wires (orange / black) running up for what I assume is the upstairs air handler (sits in the attic).

Coils of wire awaiting the final run out to the air handlers.

One of the master bath vaniy rough-ins. If you're really attentive, you can tell that the rough-in for the electrical and the plumbing moved to the right by about 8 inches.

Looking down from the stairwell into the greatroom. Mostly, this is to show the blue box on the ledge that will be used for track lighting in the great room to illuminate some paintings.

Plumbing vent up through the roof. It may have already been there, but I just noticed it.

Because the gap between supports for the door and windows in the Great Room was so small, the electrician had to get creative attaching the electrical boxes (in this case for a switch). Here, screws had to be sunk into the side of the box rather than nailed as is typical.

Here's what an electrical box is normally attached - simply by nailing the in on the top and/or bottom (with depth set to match the dry wall).

Another example of what had to be done to work around the tight framing around the windows / doors in the great room. Here an angled hole that cuts through some of the supports was made to get access to exterior wall between the french doors and the window.

View of the south side of the great room. If you look closely, you can see the roughed-in wires for the lights that will go over / next to the door on the deck.

Some of the wires for the lights that will go outside of the basement entrance. In theory, this is supposed to mimic the appearance of the French doors opening onto the (eventual) deck above.

We got 3 inches of rain overnight, which was more than our poor little silt fence could bear.

The rain also washed out the driveway some with gravel distributed down the culvert. According to forecasts, this week will be dry.


Thursday, May 14, 2009

May 14, 2009: Shingles, basement prep, wiring, and plumbing

With the house frame up, a lot of different things can happen in parallel. For instance, on the 14th, more backfilling was done, shingles were started, prep work was done on the basement for pouring the floor, and more wiring and plumbing rough-in work were done.
Shingling started and got through about 1/3 of the roof.

The shingle guys are set up for the backside on the great room (see the brown packets of shingles)

Dan was busy finishing off the backfill while we were there. They were trying to make the house as nice-looking as possible before the bank came out the next day before approving the first draw.

The mound of dirt being used to finish off the backfill.

More backfill / leveling in progress. I just thought it would be cool to have a picture of construction going on outside of the house from inside the house through a window.

Pipe for water spigot by the garage.

Looking into the guest room from the garage. The electricians move fast as none of these rough-ins were there yesterday.

A lighting fixture in the attic positioned on a collar.


The attic fan. There will be a whole house fan approximately right below it.

Some of the intricate wiring runs around the steps.

Rough-in for a toilet in the master bathroom.


Rough-ins for one of the master vanities. Unfortunately, we got an offset vanity and they were assuming a centered vanity, so the pipes and wires had to move a little to the right. (That's also an example of why we're out there every day - to catch things like this early before they become big problems later)

Looking at the rough-in for the jack-and-jill bathroom,

On the top floor, most of the cables in the electrical boxes were stripped so the switches / outlets can be quickly wired after the drywall finishes (1-2 weeks in the future).

We also had to move the pantry door towards the kitchen so we could fit in the main-level's cold air return. Also see the mass of wires running through the pantry wall and down into the basement.

Wiring continuing in the great room. A bit slower there as it's a little harder to reach up high in there.

Rough-ins and wiring looking from the dining room back towards the garage (coat closet and bathrrom to the left, stairs to the right).

Wires for an outlet on the (covered) front landing

View of the basement floor from the entrance to the basement. The plastic sheet is there to cut down on water wicking back through the concrete after it's poured (plus I think it's required to meet code).

View of the basement floor from the main level.

Fritz couldn't wait to see what had gotten done in the house. Silver (in the back) preferred a little more stately approach to the house.


Wednesday, May 13, 2009

May 13, 2009: Electrical Rough-ins begin

On Wednesday, we got out to the lot fairly early, which should mean better lighting and better pictures, but I apparently screwed up a setting on the camera, so the pictures were blurry, which I didn't notice until later. The electrical rough-ins began (intentionally started after the plumbing rough-ins under the theory that it's a lot easier to adjust the path of a wire than the path of a pipe) and some light carpentry (opening for false stairwell to attic, roughing-in the front doorway).

Some more backfilling occured around the front.

A few more pipes were run in the main floor bathroom.

View of the master bedroom from the stairwell. You can see where a lot of the wires were already run. A lot of the electrical roughins on the top floor occured on the first day. (Cable, phone mostly happened the next day.)

View of one of the bedrooms from the stairwell.

Looking back through the previous bedroom.

Looking through the laundry room to the master bedroom.

Master bedroom and closets.

Master bedroom ceiling with the fan / light roughin. There will also be a couple recessed lights on the shelf.

Rough-ins around the master bathroom.

View of the laundry room from the master bedroom.

Looking up into the attic from the master bedroom. The higher blue electrical box is there to hold the smoke detector for the master bedroom.

Rough-ins in another bedroom on the top floor.

A vanity light roughin in the jack & jill bathroom.

The opening for the false (pull-down) stairwell to the attic in the top floor hallway.

Some holes drilled in stairway supports tha will eventually have wires running through them.

Preethi, Fritz and Silver hanging out in the great room.

Roughing in the front door. I can't find a picture of it online, but it's really a rather cool looking door that doesn't have all the superfluous (from our perspective) grill work.

Wires coming down into the basement where the electrical panel will be. Basically it's underneath the kitchen in what will someday be a basement office / bedroom (not during this construction) so we'll likely have to build a little closet around it. This is after one day; there will be a lot more wires later as we'll be using a double panel.

A view of the house from the West that emphasizes the varying roof lines.